Rosalind in the Forest

Rosalind in the Forest of 1870, now at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, takes its subject from Shakespeare's As You Like It, one of Millais's favourite literary sources. Rosalind, the play's witty and resourceful heroine, disguises herself as a young man and retreats with her cousin Celia to the Forest of Arden, where she navigates love and identity with extraordinary intelligence. Millais had painted Shakespeare's heroines throughout his career, and his approach in this period favours character suggestion over dramatic scene illustration — the figure is placed in an evocative natural setting, her psychology implied rather than enacted. The Walker Art Gallery holds one of England's great collections of Victorian painting, and this work represents Millais at the intersection of his literary interests and his ongoing refinement of technique in the late 1860s.

Oil on canvas, the painting uses the forest setting to create a rich interplay of dappled light and shadow. The figure of Rosalind is modelled with warm flesh tones against the cooler greens of the woodland setting. Millais's tree and foliage rendering has become freer than his early Pre-Raphaelite botanical precision, but retains a naturalistic vitality.